Comments on Paul
It is to be supposed that all scientific men accept, at least in theory, the
view that the advancement of biological knowledge will ultimately be of
service in the practical affairs of mankind; but there can be little doubt that
most would feel some embarrassment if their views had to be made the
basis of practical, and therefore controversial, policy. There is good
reason for this; for scientific men, no less than others, imbibe before their
profession is chosen, and perhaps later, the same passions and prejudices
respecting human affairs as do the rest of mankind; and while the standard
of critical impartiality necessary to science may, perhaps, be easily
maintained, so long as we are discussing the embryology of the seaurchin, or the structure of the stellar atmosphere, it cannot be relied on
with confidence in subjects in which these prejudices are aroused.
R.A. Fisher: The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, 2nd rev. ed., ch.
XII, p. 275
I am interested in the way in which the history of a discipline is, and is not,
constitutive of that discipline--I imagine it to be somewhat like the way in which the
history of a species is, and is not, constitutive of that species. One of the problems in
thinking about this question is that contemporary practitioners of a discipline often tell
what purport to be historical narratives about their discipline. These narratives may be
demonstratively one-sided, selective or, in the worst case, completely fabricated. One
role for history in this circumstance is to test these narratives against a serious
phylogenetic reconstruction of the discipline, in the case before us, human genetics.
Because I find this interesting, and because there are two commentators, I am
going to focus my attention on Pt. III of Professor Paul's paper. Diane Paul is there
interested in the way in which contributors to the contemporary debate over the pros and
cons, promises and dangers, of genetic engineering tell historical narratives to bolster
their argument.
2
One immediate question is how Parts III and II of her paper are connected to each
other.
Is Part II providing a more nuanced and balanced picture of the eugenics
movement(s), for comparison with the ‘contested uses of history’ discussed in Part III? If
so, less attention needs to be given to the forward-looking science fiction of the
eugenicists she discusses—as amazing as it is--and more to the actual social
recommendations and historical activities of members of (to cite two) the Eugenics
Laboratory of the University of London or the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring
Harbor; or on serious policy-oriented discussions of the pros and cons of eugenics found
in works such as W. E. Castle's Genetics and Eugenics, published in 1916 by Harvard
University Press, or the later chapters of Ronald Fisher's The Genetical Theory of Natural
Selection published in 1930 by Oxford U. Press. That is, we need to compare the claims
about the history of eugenics in the narratives told today with what actually happened,
rather than with utopian or apocalyptic visions of a eugenically shaped world.
A second question I have emerges from the first two paragraphs of Part III of
Paul's paper. She begins by noting that 'as late as the 80s' it was not common to oppose
advances in the application of genetic engineering to medicine or reproductive
technology simply by branding them as 'a new eugenics'. If the term was used at all, it
was not used pejoratively. Now I would like first to know more about the scope of that
claim and, given that the scope of the claim is defined, how good our evidence is for its
general truth with respect to the defined domain. But more interestingly, we are told that
by now the situation has changed, and "in popular and even most academic discourse, to
label a practice "eugenics" is thereby to denounce it" (p. 9). About this I also would like
to have both the scope of, and the evidence for, the claim more clearly defined. But
3
supposing, that being done, it turns out that there was a change of this kind, I would be
interested in hearing from Diane Paul why she thinks this change occurred.
Be that as it may, she wants to claim that simply labeling a use of genetic
engineering in human reproduction as 'eugenics' has taken the place of argument. One is
no longer required to explain what is harmful about the practice, provided you have
convinced people that it is 'eugenics'. (It is important to put it this way, since from a
eugenicist's standpoint, a great deal of the medical potential of genetic engineering may
be seen as having a negative, rather than a positive, impact on the human gene pool.)
With respect to the role of "the histories that typically accompany these
discussions", Paul claims that an implication of most is that eugenics is by nature
coercive. Most of page 10 of the paper consists of quotes from people arguing, or more
often simply asserting, the value of personal autonomy in reproductive and medical
decision-making. She tells us that these quotes are sufficient to show us that tales "that
equate eugenics with racism and compulsion and star jack-booted Nazis" aid the
enthusiast for genetic engineering in two respects.
1.
If they do not advocate coercive genetic engineering, then it is unfair to
brand them as eugenicists.
2.
They serve as cautionary tales with the moral of keeping human genetic
engineering out of the hands of state.
It should be pointed out, however, that there are many proponents of genetic
engineering who are not opposed to government regulation of the practice--I suspect the
NIH is full of such people. So the most one can say here, I think, is that such histories
4
may serve the interests of advocates of a free market approach to the production,
provision and the consumption of these technologies, not to enthusiasts in general.
Interestingly, Paul claims that the very same tales are used by critics of human
genetic engineering as well. She quotes Ted Peters' summary of the logic here:
Germ-line modification can be associated with eugenics
Eugenics can be associated with Nazism
________
Advocates of germ-line modification can be associated with Nazism
There is no need here to point out how bad that argument is--at any rate, Peters is
summarizing what he claims to be the argument of a Council on Responsible Genetics
position paper, and I have no confidence that Peters is being entirely fair to the argument.
But I am interested here in the claim that we have the same history being appealed
to by both opponents and proponents of human genetic engineering. In the remainder of
Prof. Paul's paper, I don't find evidence for this claim. In the quotes from opponents and
in her summaries of their views, I don't see historical associations with Nazism playing
any role at all. There is a negative view of eugenics, and an attempt to tar the use of
genetically sophisticated reproductive technologies with the eugenics brush. But it is a
different aspect of eugenics that is worrying these opponents. It is not the association of
eugenics with a coercive dictatorship that is the concern. It is the implication, built into
the term 'eugenics' by its very etymology, that there is an 'ideal person' that should be the
aim of the selection process. So we hear from the opponents of bio-engineering concerns
about "self-appointed arbiters of human excellence" about parents desiring "a certain kind
of child", about judgments that "some genes are better than others", "selecting humans of
value and non-value", "fostering an unhealthy preoccupation with perfection".
5
And Paul's own history backs up this concern--take a look at those claims by
Wallace, Spencer, Galton, Haldane or Trotsky. Moreover, this is a worry that has been
raised by critics of the eugenics movement since the 1860s. One of the results of looking
at the writings of eugenicists throughout the post-Darwinian period is that they come in
two varieties--the glass-half-full and the glass-half-empty variety. Is the aim of eugenics
to prevent a looming genetic overlaod and crash; or is it to build a more perfect human
gene pool? In the following quote, from the 1st edition of Dobzhansky’s Genetics and the
Origin of Species, he portrays the glass-half-empty variety. I suppose he has Müller in
mind.
The eugenical Jeremiahs keep constantly before our eyes the nightmare of
human
populations
accumulating
recessive
genes
that
produce
pathological effects when homozygous. These prophets of doom seem to
be unaware of the fact that wild species in the state of nature fare in this
respect no better than man does with all the artificiality of his
surroundings, and yet life has not come to an end on this planet. The
eschatological cries proclaiming the failure of natural selection to operate
in human populations have more to do with political beliefs than with
scientific findings. Looked at from another angle, the accumulation of
germinal changes in the population genotypes is, in the long run, a
necessity if the species is to preserve its evolutionary plasticity. [1937,
126]
In sum, I see tales about the history of eugenics playing two distinct roles,
corresponding to two aspects of the concept. Galton had defined eugenics as "the study
of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future
generations, either physically or mentally." What worries some people in that idea is that
6
'social control' will be used to achieve eugenic goals. What worries others is the implicit
assumption that there is a single set of genetically controlled characteristics that define
'improvement of the racial qualities, either physically or mentally'. Some worry about the
means, some worry about the ends. They are both worries about eugenics, but they are
not the same worries, and they are not supported by the same narratives. And the history
of eugenics, which must include a history of its critics, reveals some who shared eugenic
ideals but were opposed to their achievement by coercive means, and others who thought
that the ideals were misguided. And a group we haven’t talked about, which includes
Dobzhansky and many other members of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, thought that
proponents of eugenics completely misunderstood the genetics of populations.
James G. Lennox
History and Philosophy of Science
University of Pittsburgh